When we moved into our bus last October, I needed to be able to work full-time and have a good, functional work space. We had moved out the dining set and had plenty of space to work with. We opted to use a workbench we had on hand. We purchased the workbench a few years ago to be my craft table and it seemed to fit perfectly in the bus. We were able to fit everything I needed into the space. For the most part, I really liked the set-up and for the last eight months it was very functional.
The largest drawback with the workbench set-up is that my back would start to hurt after several hours of work. I’d sit on a bar stool and have to adjust my knees to the side, since there was no space to put my knees under the workspace. This meant my back was twisted all day, and by the end of the day, I was so sore. Standing would help some. I also only had a limited amount of desk work space and I found myself spreading my paperwork on the floor to complete my projects. Robert, too, would have a backache after working at the computer for a while. He started encouraging me to make a change of our workstation so that we can work more comfortably.
A couple of months ago, we started looking around at desks at office supply stores and online to get ideas. We drew up a sketch of something that could work and we could build if we couldn’t find anything that suited us. We ended up at IKEA in Tampa a couple of weeks ago and found a nice corner desk with an extension that would fit perfectly. The only drawback that I saw was I would need to replace my 2-drawer file cabinet, as it would no longer fit…just a minor detail that could easily be resolved.
We weren’t planning to make any changes to the workstation until we returned to Missouri because we thought we’d put the workbench in storage. Since we found what we were looking for, we thought we’d better go for it and change up so we wouldn’t be disappointed later. We were lucky that one of our Florida friends just so happened to be looking for a workbench and another friend needed a file cabinet. We were glad to clear out the old and install the new.
Everything from IKEA has to be assembled. It’s a good thing that everything comes in boxes, as it is easier to fit flat boxes through the RV door versus an assembled desk. It took us a few hours to put everything together and set the equipment up the way we liked it, but so far we found it was worth it. I ended up finding a portable carrying case to replace my file cabinet. It fits nicely under the desk when not in use. Our new chair is so much more comfortable than the hard wood barstool. There is so much more desk workspace. It’s our first week using our new desk, so far I LOVE it!!!
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